Friday, October 14, 2011

I'm going to OryCon in a few weeks. I haven't been in a few years, mostly because it's in Portland and it's kind of expensive. I'm looking forward to seeing folks. As soon as I know what my schedule is, I'll post it (I have a feeling it will be pretty flexible).

My fantasy is to take the train up on Friday and then come home by train Sunday. Amtrak has an annoying habit of swapping out the train for a bus. Not that the buses are old and smelly or anything, but you really can't walk around on them and it's harder to pretend you're on the Orient Express.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The weather was nice enough that I wanted to have some tea at Cafe John. I also wanted to write... and somehow that didn't happen. Today is one of those days where just as I sit down to write the phone rings, or a ton of other little distractions crop up. Like blogging. And tea. And e-mail. And more little distractions.

Yeah, the Writing Directorate's motto is ringing in my head... and now I have to finish my tea and go run yet another little errand.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Domesticity began Thursday night, when Mark and I planted a magnolia tree. Okay, Mark did about 90% of the digging and I helped move the tree from the back of his truck and into the back yard. We're pretty pleased with the tree, which is evergreen, and which should provide some extra privacy between our breakfast nook and the backdoor neighbor's house.

When I haven't been gardening (or writing), I've been cleaning up my office. My office is a closet. Literally. I moved my grandfathers old oak desk out of the closet, and it made a big difference. I suppose when I get around to replacing the ancient Windows98 desktop and its mondo CTR, I'll have even more space. I suppose that I should retire the machine, but I have a ton of old Illustrator files on it that wont run on any of my other machines. Oh well, it's there and available, and I am looking forward to more writing sessions actually in my office.

Sunday was cleaning day. We cleaned the kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room. Well, okay; Mark did most of the work while I moved things around. And did dishes. And vacuume out the fireplace (we only light candles in it, so I don't know how it got so dirty).

And then it was time to cook. I started the rice. Just as I'd turned the burner on, I got a phone call from a friend. We were discussing the logistics of next our next visit. As I gazed across our clean living room, I became aware of a layer of haze floating about four feet off the ground. It was like the fog was trying to come into the house. I excused myself from the phone conversation for a moment, walked into the smoke-filled kitchen. A white plume rose from the cast iron pan filled with boiling bacon grease on the front burner (note to self, RR and RF mean two different thing).

I picked up the pan. It was still smoldering, so I naively blew on it to try to stop the smoke.

With a foom and a whoosh, the bacon grease burst into flame.

I laughed, because it was kind of funny, and took the flaming pan outside.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

October has come, and with it have come the heavy rains. Today is an exceptioin, so I'm outside at Cafe John enjoying one last moment of sunshine. Then I'll roll up the indoor/outdoor carpet for another season of Very Grey Days.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

I discovered last week that I managed to sell a 66 word story to Delving Press. It will join 65 other similar dark stories in an anthology called "Twisted Tales."

From the Delving Press website:

Twisted Tales is a collection of 66 stories that will terrify and creep under your skin like a flesh eating virus...each story is only 66 words in length, but like the the microscopic size of ebola will eat away at your subconscious and seep into your dreams when the lights are low and the sounds of darkness frighten your every sense...

I'm happy because this was a fun story to write, I can now say that I write horror (who knew?), and I'm in an anthology with Damon Kaswell and Alethea Kontis. ... and I pretty much had the same reaction Alethea has on her blog.

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♑ I'm a Capricorn. Depending on the day and hour that means different things. It's safe to say that it's a useful metaphor. Mark, my husband, came up with the slogan for Capricorns, which is How Can I Love You If You Won't Do What I Say? I need to make a T-shirt with the Latin translation: Quomodo te amare possum nisi facere vis quae praecepi?